ME ME ME ME ME!!!

Here's a comment I found on an article about the Iceland ash cloud situation:

What a load of C...

This is no big deal. First if you are in Europe and REALLY need to get home you can take a train to another location (Athens an an example) and fly from there. I suspect most budget travelers did not have travel insurance so they are now out of luck ( those who do have insurance will be covered for out of pocket expenses)but so what,,,, they get to spend a few more days in Paris !!! I remember in the 70's when Toronto Airport was shut down for many days because of fog. No one blamed anyone for this problem they just got on with life. My parents who wanted to visit me in Calgary simply took the train.Today we expect everyone else to solve unsolvable problems for us. The reality is that some problems are just going to be and there is no one ( except the BIG guy) to blame. Get a life people and realize your problems are nothing but a nice slow news day story.

SUMMARY: This event, which is costing businesses and individuals hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide, isn't affecting ME, so it's not important.

By the way, if this naive, egotistic ass bothered to look at the Athens airport website before posting this hogwash, he/she would have noticed that it doesn't have flights going to or from North America. What's his/her brilliant suggestion then? Rent a kayak?

The mere suggestion that the worst repercussion of the situation is that travelers have to spend a couple extra days in Paris is blithely insensitive to the actual situations those who are stranded have been put in.

Also, I haven't heard anyone placing blame for the situation - maybe this commenter has - but I honestly can't imagine anyone being that idiotic. (Of course, I couldn't imagine anyone being such an insensitive prick until I read his/her comment, but there you have it.) This commenter seems to think that just because people are actively working to solve the problem, someone is being blamed; or, that whenever there's a difficult situation, we should just roll over and declare it 'unsolvable'.

At last, the original article wasn't an editorial drumming up panic in the name of volcanic ash. It was mostly reporting on what cities and airports were restarting flights and which ones weren't, with a couple quotes from experts on possible future developments and stranded travelers on how they were dealing with the situation. If the article was an example of sensationalistic reporting, then commenting about people "[getting] on with life" might be appropriate; but it wasn't. Of course people are going to get on with life. In the mean time, this is a major inconvenience that is affecting people worldwide. (In fact, the article points out that the ash cloud has caused more of a air traffic disruption than the 9/11 attacks. I wonder, would the commenter also claim that that was 'no big deal?')

I like his/her use of consecutive commas; it really is the mark of a great thinker.

This doesn't even need a critique.

If I had even an iota of respect for the journalistic integrity of FOX news, this segment would have extinguished it.

Fortunately I didn't.

The panel speaks for itself; every one of them - excluding Chris Carter, who still came off as a complete moron - exposes themselves as a complete xenophobic, self righteous bigot. Europe's economy is in ruins! (Please ignore the world wide recession our god-fearing country plunged the entire world in to in 2008.) Europe is full of pagans! (Please ignore the deeply Christian countries. By the way, pagan does not equal secular.) Europe is immoral! (Compared to what? The shining example of US morality?) Europe is a socialist haven! Socialism puts the state above individuals! (No...and, no, not really.)

It's fantastic that these people can go on television and spurt personal bias as fact, redefine concepts to suit their agenda and base conclusions on demonstrably false assertions and then claim they're being 'Fair and Balanced' because they give 30 seconds to some moron who disagrees with them, but can't string two intelligent words together.

It's not all about you.

The international release date for the iPad has been pushed back to mid-May. Boo hoo. Apple attributes this to the huge success of sales in the US - people apparently needed to get an iPad urgently to do some really important things.

The new press for iPad has set off another round of reviews making the now common quip, "there's nothing the iPad can do that you can't do with an iPhone and MacBook." Well, yes; but in another, more accurate way, no.

The iPad is a like a laptop, except it's cheaper and lighter, with better battery life than Macbooks. Yes, there are downsides, but they're sacrifices made to accommodate a more user friendly, nuts and bolts platform; you know, kinda like the iPhone OS. If I traveled a lot, I definitely be on board with getting one. (Not just yet though, I discovered after buying an original iPod touch that 1st gen devices are for suckers.)

Anyway, I feel Steve Jobs was very clear on this matter during the iPad keynote. The iPad is being targeted at a new market segment, not to Apple fan boys who already own several of every piece of hardware Apple has ever released. If you already own an iPhone and Macbook, you don't need an iPad. If you want a computer with basic functionality, (web surfing, media, basic word processing, etc.) that doesn't suck, (netbooks) and doesn't cost an arm and a leg, (all Apple products) the iPad may be for you.

Saying the iPad isn't a good product because it's not useful to a veteran Apple follower is like saying scuba gear isn't a good product because it's of no use to marathon runners. No one is claiming that the iPad is a necessary, or even useful product if you already own a laptop and smart phone. Although, I'm sure that Steve Jobs wouldn't mind if every Apple user with a couple extra hundred dollars ran out to buy one.

Oh, wait...isn't that what just happened?

Not News

I hate it when things that aren't new or revolutionary are trumpeted as such. Who better to make such a sweeping declaration than Sympatico.ca, the trusted home of Canadians! (Top left hand corner.) This patronizing claim ranks right up there with Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" bullshit. Statements like these should be a giant red flag of skepticism warning of potential ulterior motives hidden behind the brush of celeb gossip and infotainment.

I digress.

On today's Sympatico homepage one of the featured news articles is "10 simple ways to cut cancer risk." Before I continue, let me say for the record, of course I think cancer is bad, and no, I don't necessarily disagree with anything the list says. It's the mundane idiocy of it that bugs me.

Their fantastic 10-point list boils down to this:
1) Eat fruits and vegetables
2) Eat whole grains
3) Eat eggs
4) Drink milk
5) Eat garlic and onions
6) Exercise
7) Wear sunscreen
8) Don't smoke
9) Don't drink
10) Don't be fat.

Items 1 through 5:
Of these suggestions, numbers one and two have been uncontested mainstays of healthy eating plans since 1956. Numbers three and four were removed from food guides due to lack of evidence. Number 5 is out of date. (The allium family was reclassified as a subfamily in 2009 - maybe Sympatico should try updating their articles before reprinting them after two years.) For all these claims the article sites "research" and "researchers" without providing any citations or even vague references to sources. For all we know, the writers three-year-old nephew could have provided the "research." In any case, nothing remotely new was provided here and if you didn't know that fruits, vegetables and whole grains are good for you....well, there's some suggestions for you below.

Item 6:
Well, duh. Exercise may provide some extra protection for heavy smokers? What? 'Extra' protection? In addition to what? You can smoke, but exercise makes it all better. That's like a parent handing their child a running chain saw and a band-aid.

Item 7:
Once again, old news strikes again. Exposure to UV rays has long been established to contribute to skin cancers. Hey, that's probably why the WHO warned about it in 2005!

Item 8:
Seriously, at this point, if you don't know about/are unconvinced by the evidence connecting smoking and lung cancer, (among other kinds) maybe you should do us all a favour: smoke more and eliminate yourself from the human gene pool as quickly as possible. Thanks.

Item 9:
See point 8, except the key with drinking seems to be moderation. Yup, even winos can enjoy some health benefits!

Item 10:
Broken record time. If you're unconvinced of by the evidence/complete obviousness of how negatively being morbidly obese affects damn near everything you need to do on a daily basis, go ahead and have another box of Twinkies for dinner. Fatty.

So, to summarize; 1) Don't do things you know are bad for you; 2) Eat real food; 3) Don't reprint articles from two years ago that contain information which wasn't even new back then.

Must have been a slow news day.

Cutting through the crap.

A brief assignment:

Read the following two explanations for how homeopathy works. Using the principal of Occam's Razor determine which one is more likely to be true.

Explanation 1
Explanation 2

The meaning of 'opinion'

Why do people not understand the significance of an opinion?

Simply put, there is none.

"A view or judgment formed about something," says the Apple dashboard dictionary; I'm not going any further than hitting F12 to substantiate my claim here. It continues: "Not necessarily based on fact or knowledge." That says it all! An opinion is just something that someone thinks. Can any assertion be more vague? Maybe the opinion is based on some concrete evidence, or maybe it's based on person experience, or maybe it's based on total BS. The point is, in all the above scenarios, equally valid opinions can be formed. I say they're equally valid because the only criteria for an opinion to be an opinion is that someone, anyone, has to think it. That's about the lowest requirement of support I can possibly imagine.

Why does it matter?

It annoys me to no end when the crux of an antagonist's argument is, essentially, "You shouldn't have that opinion because it differs from my opinion." No. Wrong. Dead wrong. I can have an opinion that differs from yours, and honestly, if your only retort to my standpoint is that my viewpoint conflicts with yours, you don't actually have anything useful to say.

Everyone is completely entitled to have an opinion about whatever cock and bull issue they want. If it's your opinion that the sky is ruby red, Santa Claus exists and the earth is 6000 years, fine. Fantastic. I'm very happy for you. If you want to convince anyone else of your opinion, you'd better have something more to say than "I think blah blah blah."

Otherwise, shut the fuck up.